


Believing Looks A Lot Like Gambling

by pipdepop



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Chapter 5 Spoilers, Gen, Guarma sucks, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Canonical Character Death, except it's not sweet it's sad, short n' sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipdepop/pseuds/pipdepop
Summary: Holed up and hurting in their makeshift camp, Arthur doesn’t know who he’s doubting more: Dutch, or himself.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & Dutch van der Linde
Comments: 46
Kudos: 91





	Believing Looks A Lot Like Gambling

**Author's Note:**

> So, as those who follow me on tumblr might have already seen me whining about, I’m a dumbass and messed up my save files so had to repeat Chapter 5 (thankfully, The Absolute Worst Chapter is also the shortest!) But, silver lining: this time around, I managed to get the Sun Hat. And when I did, Dutch was nearby and he chuckled and said ‘I think I prefer your father’s old hat.’ But he says it in such a gentle, teasing way, it honestly took me by surprise (given that, y’know, I was watching him strangle an old lady not half an hour beforehand). Resulting in this.
> 
> Title is from a verse in ‘Born without borders’ by The New Schematics:  
>  _Funny thing about faith_  
>  _It’s hard as hell to fake_  
>  _Believing looks a lot like gambling..._

_Hell is a place on Earth, and that place is called Guarma._

Arthur contemplates the realisation as he trudges back up the hill towards the pile of ruin and rubble they call a camp, before forcing himself back to paying attention. He never thought he’d ever say he _missed_ the snakes back home, but at least most of them did you the courtesy of giving a warning rattle if they decided you were getting too close. Their tropical island cousins aren’t nearly so accommodating – they only give a hiss before lunging at you. He’ll have to thank Hercule again for the boots next time they see him, even though the blistering on his sunburnt feet is agonising. Beats being poisoned.

_Focus._

Now the rush of the escape and ensuing gunfight with Fussar’s men has worn off, he head throbs and his body aches from both the beating and whatever was in that dart they got him with. He just has to get back to camp, and then hopefully Dutch’ll let him rest for a few hours before they go and meet with Hercule. Hopefully.

Or maybe he’ll send him off, alone, on some other errand that nearly gets him killed. Was a time when Arthur took pride in being Dutch’s most trusted gun; took pride in being the first through the door into the unknown and the last to leave when the law were on their way. But, way things have been going recently... 

A small part of him, one that often likes to remember things like _you were swinging in that basement and_ no one _was coming for you,_ is wondering if he’s still the most trusted, or just the most disposable; a workhorse nearing the end of its usefulness. Arthur tends to reason that’s just the fatigue (and in the past few days, grief) talking, and does his best to ignore it. But while the voice of doubt may be quiet, it never shuts up.

_Focus._

Finally, he smells woodsmoke, and the ruins come into view. Micah’s on watch, leaning against one of the crumbling pillars, gun carelessly held in one arm, bored expression on his face. Arthur doesn’t bother greeting him as he passes – hasn’t spoken to him at all, in fact, since that remark about Hosea and Lenny. Doesn’t trust himself not to get into a fight with the bastard. And he’s taken enough punches for one day.

He stifles a cough as he enters the ruins proper – doesn’t want to wake Javier, who’s carefully curled up on the one cot they have, Bill snoring on the crates nearby. The air here is even worse than in the swamps of Lemoyne, thick and humid and sticking in his lungs. The others don’t seem to be struggling with it though. Maybe he needs to start taking ginseng tonics or something. Isn’t that what Hosea swears by?

Swore by.

His breath stutters for an entirely different reason.

_Focus._

Get some rest, get to Hercule, get a boat, get the hell out of here. That’s the plan. There’s always a plan. 

Trouble is, sticking to the plan has done more harm than good, lately. 

Part of him – the part that’s been fed and nurtured for over twenty years – feels mortified for even thinking along such traitorous lines. Part of him feels indignant and angry because _it’s the truth._ Most of him just feels tired. Tired and resigned.

“I _think_ I prefer your father’s old hat.”

The soft chuckle interrupts his musings, and he turns to see Dutch tucked into a corner on a couple of old blankets. But his warm, amused expression is so startling to see, Arthur almost does a double take. 

He wonders when he began to expect a sneer on Dutch’s face, instead of a smile.

“Yeah, well, it’s better’n nothin’,” he mumbles, dropping himself down beside Dutch to lean against the old wall with a sigh. His new hat is a silly white straw thing that’d look better on one of the girls than it does on him (and were they okay? Does Jack still have a mother? Dutch says Abigail must’ve got away, but how do they know the Pinkertons didn’t just shoot her in the street like they did Hosea? They only needed one hostage after all). Rather than linger on such thoughts, he pulls the hat off, running a hand through his dirty, sweat-matted hair. Wonders what it was ever like to feel clean. Everything _clings_ here; he feels like he’s slowly losing himself under layers of grime and sweat and blood as his clothes slowly become one with his skin.

“Jesus, son, what happened?”

When he looks up, the blatant concern on Dutch’s face is also startling – Arthur barely manages to keep himself from flinching when Dutch reaches out to gently brush his fingers against the bruise he can feel on his jaw.

“Helped rescue those workers Hercule told us about,” he answers, ducking his head. “But Fussar’s men got the jump on me.”

“How’d they manage that?” Dutch asks, frowning, and Arthur can’t help but feel ashamed.

“They got me with some kind of dart,” he mutters, rubbing at the small puncture wound in his neck; it still stings, and itches something fierce. “Woke up tied to a chair and a _real_ friendly local beating the shit out of me.” Might not have happened if he hadn’t been sent out alone, he thinks bitterly, but he daren’t say the words aloud. 

_“What?!”_

He looks up, and Dutch is _furious,_ and he can’t help but flinch this time, apologies bubbling up his throat along with the coughs. But before he can get any of them out, Dutch huffs and stands up, telling him to stay there. Disappears around the corner into to another ‘room’ in the ruins, before coming back with what looks like medical supplies.

“Hey now, save those for Javier, I don’t need-” his protests are interrupted by a coughing fit – he’s aware of Dutch rubbing his back as he tries to stifle the noise into his elbow.

“We’ve already taken care of Javier – some rest and stretching, he’ll be just fine. Now hold still.” His tone doesn’t leave any room for argument, so Arthur does as he’s told, sitting still as Dutch starts carefully wiping at his face with a damp cloth before smoothing some sort of herbal-smelling salve onto the worst of the bruising and sunburn. It stings briefly, but it’s followed by a pleasant cooling sensation that has him sighing. 

“I hope you killed the bastard who did this to you,” Dutch says lowly. Arthur opens his eyes (when did he close them?), and the continued open concern on Dutch’s face, the gentleness in his hands, baffles him.

_But why should it?_ that twenty-year-old part of himself immediately asks, chastising. Sure, it was Hosea or Susan, and later Reverend Swanson, who usually dealt with the medical care duties when someone came back to camp bruised or bloodied, but there’ve been plenty of times when Dutch had taken care of him. Plenty of times when he’d saved Arthur’s hide after he got into scrapes he couldn’t get himself out of, with his clever words and grandstanding, or with his flashing pistols, fiercer than a lion. Plenty of times he’d patched him up afterwards with gentle teasing and gentler hands. Dutch has been his protector, his carer, his mentor, his _father,_ for those twenty years and more.

But he thinks about that old woman, Gloria. Thinks about Dutch choking the life out of her at the same time as he smashed her skull into a ladder. Thinks about the way Dutch’s rings glinted in the sunlight as he climbed said ladder – rings that Arthur _knows_ are made of real gold, rings he could have offered up as payment. Thinks about the barely-veiled threat in Dutch’s voice when he questioned him. 

“Dead or with a headache he’ll never forget. I didn’t stick around to check,” he mumbles. Dutch just hums in amusement as he brushes Arthur’s hair aside to get a better look at the puncture wound on his neck, fingers gently probing around it. Arthur lets his eyes close again. Part of him wants to smack Dutch’s hands away – those hands that had killed a woman in cold blood not even a day ago. 

But he’s exhausted, and hurting, and he doesn’t actually think he could resist even if he tried when Dutch, having finished cleaning and putting salve on the dart wound, murmurs “c’mere,” and guides him down so he’s lying with his head in Dutch’s lap, Dutch’s arms carefully cradling his neck and shoulders. 

“Dutch,” he whispers. Wants to ask him why he killed Gloria. Wants to ask him why he killed a girl on that ferry what feels like a lifetime ago. Wants to ask him why he didn’t save John. Wants to ask him why he’s acting this way, now, when for the past few weeks, hell even the past few months, he’s been more and more distant, muttering about trust and loyalty and faith while doubting them all.

But he’s so damn tired.

“Get some sleep, Arthur,” Dutch hushes him, “tomorrow we’re gonna find Hercule, and make him uphold his part of the deal, and we’re gonna get out of here. So you just rest up now.”

Dutch’s voice is soft, and if Arthur keeps his eyes closed and lets his mind drift, he can pretend they’re back in America. Can morph the noises of the strange insects and animals of the jungle into the more familiar song of crickets and owls and wolves in the distance. Can pretend it’s just an especially muggy night, before a thunderstorm maybe, out in the hot, open plains of the west. Can pretend Dutch is comforting him after he’s gone and done something stupid like tried to rob a stagecoach by himself. Can pretend that Hosea’s over by the campfire, valiantly persevering with John’s reading lessons while Bessie and Susan hide their giggles and encourage him to try just one more page. Can pretend that everything’s the way it used to be, and Dutch still loves him and Hosea’s still alive and everything will turn out okay.

But despite his best attempts, his face must crumple, because Dutch makes a soft sound, starts gently stroking through his hair, easing the tangles out.

“Shhh. It’s okay son, I’m here. I’m here.” And it’s like when Arthur was even younger, frightened by the specter of a man with cold grey eyes and a dark gambler’s hat, and Dutch and Hosea would take turns sleeping with him at night to keep the nightmares at bay. And he doesn’t understand, where this softness, this ghost of the old Dutch, has come from. Desperately hopes it will last. 

Knows it won’t. 

“It’ll be okay, Arthur. I’ll get us out of this. Just have some faith, son.”

Arthur closes his eyes tighter, hides his face in Dutch’s shirt, and pretends he believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> The practical part of me assumes the hat line is just generic dialogue triggered by the player wearing something other than the default gambler’s hat while being in proximity to Dutch. The angsty fic writer part of me wants to think that Arthur kept seeing glimpses of the old Dutch even as everything went to hell, and that’s partly why he stuck by him for so long – hence this fic. Though I guess I’m about to find out because I’m off to play Chapter 6, for real this time! (Who, me? Writing fic to procrastinate playing the mission where Arthur gets diagnosed? Nooooo, never.)
> 
> As always, thank you for reading <3


End file.
